Imagine finishing a prolonged run, retiring for the evening and feeling nothing but enjoyment—no injuries, no pain. This is what Pose Method creator Dr. Nicholas Romanov hopes for his athletes.

Erin Cafaro is one of the world’s best on-water rowers. In a private session at the University of San Diego, Dr. Romanov teaches her how to run by practicing correct posing and working with nature and gravity. Movement is the alternation of poses—moving from one pose to another—and the concept can be applied to any movement.

In Pose running, you focus on one position that keeps you moving forward and conserves energy. The impetus for this movement is gravity, and when an athlete grasps this concept, she ceases to fight nature and begins to work with it.

The baseline concept (or pose) is referred to as the “balance stance.” Dr. Romanov draws an imaginary vertical line through the athlete, and the line is anchored to the ground by the ball of the foot. When the natural counterbalance is taken from the equation, the body looks like the number “4” and the running looks and sounds more efficient.

Comment

Related Articles

In Pose running, it isn’t enough to just hit the “pose.” You actually have to fall in the pose. Fine-tuning the stride of elite on-water rower Erin Cafaro, Dr. Nicholas Romanov explains… Continue Reading

Pose Method creator Dr. Nicholas Romanov sits down with Sevan Matossian to discuss how he made his influential discovery.

When he was deciding upon his career, Romanov says he was driven toward… Continue Reading

I agree totally. This is really interesting and this particular video was the best one of the bunch. As a runner of 19 years it's hard to change old ways but I'm willing if it makes me a more efficient runner. That and the whole CF philosophy and crosstraining elements.

This was helpful and I very much look forward to the next instalment, but I have a few thoughts:

What would be very useful to me would be to see people running who have already learnt how to use the Pose method rather than seeing people learning how to do it. I'd like to see some analytical video of Dr. Nicholas Romanov (or his trainers) actually using his method. In order to learn Pose I feel I really need to get to see someone transitioning between the correct poses.

When I learned to clean & jerk and snatch, I spent a lot of time watching video of many top Olympic lifters, slowing the footage down as required to mentally connect with the different phases of the lifts. It became apparent that differences in body proportions and variations in technique caused slightly different bar paths and different joint angles at the start and during the lifts. If I had only been able to watch video footage of people learning the lifts I'm pretty sure I would have been more confused than aided - unless I got lucky and they happened to be naturally gifted.

For me, I need to see the correct motion to have it 'click' mentally. Then I can work on translating that into my own movement and develop my proprioception, hopefully to the point where I am aware that I am moving in the correct fashion.

Of course, anything worth learning is worth a good deal of effort, and this is no exception; I do very much appreciate that this information is being provided by HQ and I will pour over it in the hope that it eventually 'clicks' for me.

I was fortunate enough to attend Dr. Romanov's 3 day level 1 cert. class at Ft. Bragg this month. I've been hurt for the past ~ 2 years with bi-lat. stress fractures in my feet. His method has me back running and building mileage and speed. If you can get to one of his classes - it will completely change your training. I highly encourage reading his books on running and triathalon training. He and his son Severin are fantastic. Also search thru their website - posetech.com
AMT

Hoping part 2 is posted shortly. Have tried to do POSE technique in past and haven't mastered. Tried again this weekend and did about 5K, definitely feeling some calf pain since, but back and hips feel normal (which is definitely great, compared to old style running).

Mike, there are many different possible locations and types of meniscal tears, so it is impossible to be completely certain about what types of activities would be least likely to make your particular condition worse.

Getting an MRI can give a decent picture, but most docs will agree that it is very difficult to determine the full extent of the damage to a meniscus or the best possible option for fixing the problem without poking and prodding it, and the best way to do that is arthroscopy.

'Erin Cafaro is one of the world's best on-water rowers'
What other kind of rowing is there? I know, I know, indoor rowing or erging, however on-water rowing doesn't need a qualification, it is the only proper type and all these pretenders on Concept 2s should realise that.

The CrossFit Journal is a chronicle of the empirically driven, clinically tested, and community developed CrossFit program. Our mission is to provide a venue for contributing coaches, trainers, athletes, and researchers to ponder, study, debate, and define fitness and collectively advance the art and science of optimizing human performance.